15 a New Language of Form

15 A New Language of Form During the postwar years, when Edward McKnight Kauff er and A. M. Cassandre were applying synthetic cubism’s planes to the poster in England and France, a formal typographic approach to graphic design emerged in Holland and Russia, where artists saw clearly the implications of cubism. Visual art could move beyond the threshold of pictorial imagery into the invention of pure form. Ideas about form and composing space from the new painting and sculpture were quickly applied to problems of design. It would be a mistake, however, to say that modern design is a stepchild of the fi ne arts. As discussed in chapter 12, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Glasgow group, the Vienna Secession, Adolf Loos, and Peter Behrens were all moving a heartbeat ahead of modern painting in their consciousness of plastic volume and geometric form at the turn of the century. A spirit of innovation was present in art and design, and new ideas were 15–1 in abundance. By the end of World War I, graphic designers, architects, and product designers were energetically challenging prevailing notions about form and function. 15–1. David and Vladimir Burliuk, Russian suprematism and constructivism pages from Vladimir Mayakovski: A Russia was torn by the turbulence of World War I and then Tragedy, 1914. In an effort to relate vi- the Russian Revolution in the second decade of the twentieth sual form to meaning, Russian futurist century. Czar Nicholas II (1868–1918) was overthrown and graphic design mixed type weights, executed along with his family. Russia was ravaged by civil sizes, and styles. war, and the Red Army of the Bolsheviks emerged victorious by 1920. During this period of political trauma, a brief flower- 15–2. Ilja Zdanevich, insert cover ing of creative art in Russia had an international influence on of Milliork, by Aleksei Kruchenykh, twentieth-century graphic design. Beginning with Marinetti’s 1919. Zdanevich’s cover illustrates Russian lectures, the decade saw Russian artists absorb cubism the infl uence of Dada and futurism and futurism with amazing speed and then move on to new on the Russian avant-garde. innovations. The Russian avant-garde saw common traits in cubism and futurism and coined the term cubo-futurism. 15–3. Ilja Zdanevich, pages from Experimentation in typography and design characterized their Le-Dantyu as a Beacon, 1923. The futurist publications, which presented work by the visual and Burliuk brothers and the Dadaists literary art communities. Symbolically, the Russian futurist inspired Zdanevich’s playscript design, books were a reaction against the values of czarist Russia. the lively movements of which are cre- The use of coarse paper, handicraft production methods, and ated by mixing type sizes and styles handmade additions expressed the poverty of peasant society and building letters from letterpress as well as the meager resources of artists and writers. The poet ornaments. Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovski’s autobiographical play was printed in a dissonant futurist style designed by David 15–4. Vladimir Vladimirovich Maya- and Vladimir Burliuk (Fig. 15–1), becoming a model for works kovski, ROSTA Window poster, by others, including Ilja Zdanevich (Figs. 15–2 and 15–3). c. 1921. Such simple posters The Bolsheviks began a news agency, the Russian Telegraph spread the Bolshevik message to Agency (ROSTA) in 1917, immediately following the Rus- the largely illiterate population. sian Revolution. Two years later ROSTA posters began to be 16_9780470168738-ch15.indd 298 9/9/11 8:03 PM Russian suprematism and constructivism 299 produced to support the Red Army in the civil war. Using straightforward pictorial designs, their goal was to portray the Bolshevik version of the new politics through the use of images. Crudely stenciled illustrations presented exaggerated historical and social events to appeal to a largely illiterate or semiliterate audience. Typical images included fancily dressed uncouth capitalists receiving punishment for what the Bolshe- viks considered their evil ways. Issued on separate sheets in a comic book form, they were commonly called ROSTA Windows. They appeared from the fall of 1919 until January 1922 and were hung in shop windows and other places where they would be easily seen. At first, they were hand-copied individual designs, but in the spring of 1920 they began to be produced using stencils, and one hundred copies could be produced in a single day. Mayakovski was closely linked with the ROSTA Windows, and his fi rst ROSTA poster appeared in October 1919. Although Mayakovski did not choose the themes for the posters, they were based on his writing or approved by him, and close to one- third of the ROSTA illustrations were his designs (Fig. 15–4). Kasimir Malevich (1878–1935) founded a painting style of basic forms and pure color that he called suprematism. After working in the manner of futurism and cubism, Malevich created an elemental geometric abstraction that was new and totally nonobjective. He rejected both utilitarian function and pictorial representation, instead seeking the supreme “expression of feeling, seeking no practical values, no ideas, no promised land.” Malevich believed the essence of the art 15–2 15–3 15–4 16_9780470168738-ch15.indd 299 9/9/11 8:03 PM 300 Chapter 15: A New Language of Form 15–5 15–6 15–5. Kasimir Malevich, Black Square, 15–8. El Lissitzky, PROUN 23, no. 6, c. 1913. A new vision for visual art 1919. Lissitzky developed visual ideals is as far removed as possible from about balance, space, and form in his the world of natural forms and paintings, which became the basis for appearances. his graphic design and architecture. 15–7 15–6. Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition, 1915. A symphonic arrangement of elemental shapes of luminous color on a white fi eld be- comes an expression of pure feeling. 15–7. Kasimir Malevich, cover of Pervyi tsikl lektsii (First Circle of Lec- tures), by Nikolai Punin. A suprematist composition is combined with typography, 1920. 16_9780470168738-ch15.indd 300 9/9/11 8:03 PM Russian suprematism and constructivism 301 experience was the perceptual effect of color and form. To demonstrate this, perhaps as early as 1913 he made a composition with a black square on a white background (Fig. 15–5), asserting that the feeling this contrast evoked was the essence of art. In works such as the 1915 Suprematist Composition (Fig. 15–6), and the cover of Pervyi tsikl lektsii (First Circle of Lec- tures) (Fig. 15–7), Malevich created a construction of concrete elements of color and shape. The visual form became the content, and expressive qualities developed from the intuitive organization of the forms and colors. The Russian movement was actually accelerated by the revolution, for art was given a social role rarely assigned to it. Leftist artists had been opposed to the old order and its conservative visual art. In 1917 they turned their energies to a massive propaganda effort in support of the revolutionaries, but by 1920 a deep ideological split developed concerning the role of the artist in the new communist state. Some artists, including Malevich and Kandinsky, argued that art must 15–8 remain an essentially spiritual activity apart from the utilitarian needs of society. They rejected a social or political role, believing the sole aim of art to be realizing perceptions of the In 1919 Marc Chagall, principal of the art school in Vitebsk, world by inventing forms in space and time. Led by Vladimir located about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Moscow, Tatlin (1885–1953) and Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956), asked Lissitzky to join the faculty. Malevich was teaching twenty-five artists advanced the opposing viewpoint in 1921, there and became a major influence on Lissitzky, who devel- when they renounced “art for art’s sake” to devote themselves oped a painting style that he called PROUNS (an acronym for to industrial design, visual communications, and applied arts “projects for the establishment [affirmation] of a new art”). In serving the new communist society. These constructivists contrast to the absolute flatness of Malevich’s picture plane, called on the artist to stop producing useless things such as PROUNS (Fig. 15–8) introduced three-dimensional illusions paintings and turn to the poster, for “such work now belongs that both receded (negative depth) behind the picture plane to the duty of the artist as a citizen of the community who is (naught depth) and projected forward (positive depth) from clearing the field of the old rubbish in preparation for the new the picture plane. Lissitzky called PROUNS “an interchange life.” Tatlin turned from sculpture to the design of a stove that station between painting and architecture.” This indicates would give maximum heat from minimum fuel; Rodchenko his synthesis of architectural concepts with painting; it also forsook painting for graphic design and photojournalism. describes how PROUNS pointed the way to the application An early attempt to formulate constructivist ideology was of modern painting concepts of form and space to applied the 1922 brochure Konstruktivizm by Aleksei Gan (1893–1942). design. This is seen in his 1919 poster “Beat the Whites with He criticized abstract painters for their inability to break the Red Wedge” (Fig. 15–9). The space is dynamically divided the umbilical cord connecting them to traditional art and into white and black areas. Suprematist design elements are boasted that constructivism had moved from laboratory work transformed into political symbolism that even a semiliterate to practical application. Gan wrote that tectonics, texture, peasant can supposedly understand: Support for the “red” and construction were the three principles of constructivism. Bolshevik against the “white” forces of Aleksandr Kerensky is Tectonics represented the unification of communist ideology symbolized by a red wedge slashing into a white circle.

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